starlightexpressmusicalfandomcom-20200215-history
User blog:Belle pullman/Misogyny in Starlight Express
Misogyny and other Criticisms of Starlight Express While Starlight Express is pitched as a fun, magical, family-friendly story, there have always been criticisms of the show, particularly in relation to the treatment of female characters, and allegations of racism. Sexism and Female Agency At the heart of the story is an inequity - all the Engines are male, all the female characters are the less powerful coaches and components - they exist for the Engines to race with. Coaches work the passenger train - their lyrics in "Freight " tell us, apart from racing, they work hard and have their own lives. The components are mysterious, Electra's entourage. But within the action of the show - "Race Night" - we see Pearl and Dinah's attitudes in detail. Pearl Pearl is a young dreamer, new to the train set. She dreams of meeting the love of her life, yet she considers the races "Only Fun" when Dinah challenges her on stealing Dinah's boyfriend. Pearl's attitude is hard to reconcile - either she is so dumb she doesn't realise how much damage her decisions cause, or she is cold and hard-hearted, and doesn't care that her selfish actions cause so much pain to Rusty and Dinah. Revisions of the show have made it less of an ensemble piece, and making Pearl more solidly the principal female, therefore making her character more in the focus for criticism. It's easy to feel affection towards Pearl, bless her she's so blonde she's pink, but she does not make a good role model. Dinah Dinah and Greaseball's relationship is remarkably problematic. In the original production, the 2nd and 3rd class sleepers literally acuse Greaseball of domestic abuse - "But he beats you all the time, he gives you hell/He two-times you and he likes to kiss and tell" which is played out in the introduction to "There's Me ", where he throws her to the ground for daring to criticise him. She immediately begins to apologise, in classic domestic abuse behavior, but he leaves her. Dinah spends the next half of the show heart-broken, singing "UNCOUPLED". At the end she shows a glimmer of back-bone, promising to tell him to "Go away you B.A.S.T.A.R.D.". But that moment of strength disappears, and most problematically, the other coaches encourage her to go back to him in "Rolling Stock (reprise) ". And indeed, in the end he apologises and she takes him back. Yes, he's lost the race, but the story from abused partners of "He swore he'd change", "He won't do it again", in real life terms almost always result in more abusive cycles. While Starlight Express is fantasy in the highest degree, the characters are still role models. Dinah and Pearl are the characters little girls aspire to be like, and their story lines are very problematic as role models. Engines vs Coaches The concept of Engines racing with Partners is surprisingly unexplored in the show. Why do Engines need to race with a partner? In the London revamp, Control tells us that it's against the rules for an Engine not to have a partner. But the function of the partner is left fairly nebulous. All the engines are male, the most appealing race partners are female. This makes it clear that females are considered less athletic, less powerful, and less capable. This would be so simply resolved, by switching the gender of the actor playing Electra. in the original production, several female understudies covered the role, and the Broadway Concept album has AC/DC being sung by a woman. By having one of the four principal engines being female, the core inequality in the structure of the plot would be removed. Racism in Starlight Express When the original production opened in 1984, the Political Correctness movement was gaining strength, and racism was being seen everywhere. Arguments were made in reviews that Starlight Express is an allegory for the Black man's struggle, represented by Rusty and Poppa, against the powers that be, represented by Greaseball and Electra. This is somewhat let down by the fact that Jeffrey Daniel, who created the role of Electra, is also black, which somewhat weakens the argument that he is supressing Rusty due to his colour. In truth the only set ethnicities in casting is Poppa is almost exclusively black, and Greaseball and Dinah are almost exclusively white. Another argument made in the 1980s was that Caboose represented Communism, as the RED Caboose raced with the Russian Engine. Possibly interpreting the show to be a Cold War political allegory is stretching credibility for a show about roller-skating toy trains. Category:Blog posts